Ace Attorney creator on making the characters, music, and more

Where did you get the name Godot from, by the way?

Takumi: My personal recollection is that it came from the play Waiting for Godot, but it also turns out in the fourth case of the third game that his name actually comes from the river the Oboro Bridge is built over, The Godou River. So that episode offers another possibility, and it depends on your point of view…

So, there’s only really one prosecutor we haven’t talked about. What about Auchi?

Takumi: Him too!? His name comes from the English word ‘ouch!’… But I don’t think I needed to tell you that. (laughs) We had no problems creating his character. Because he was always popping up in the game, the team had a lot of fun thinking up what he would do next, so he was really popular. I hear his wife is also a beauty that even the judge approves of…

How did you decide on his character design?

Takumi: First off the designer read his story and talked with me about the necessary props and personality traits. Because everyone has their own ideas, he went away and drew the character how he wanted before we then went through some to and fro to iron out the final character. Actually one of the throwaway doodles in the corner of the sketchbook ended up being the one we went with. (laughs)

Such a lifelike character was born from a simple doodle? Did those illustrations influence his actual story?

Takumi: Yes, that’s true for any character. The character lines and story can often be revised based on the sort of design we come up with. I think design is vitally important. Obviously the actions of the character are also important, so we have to choose lines that will suit their conduct. Will Powers from the Steel Samurai show behaves a lot like a young girl, for example, so we made him prone to gossip. (laughs)

Did Luke Atmey’s exaggerated way of speaking also come from the character design?

Takumi: He was like that from the beginning. When I thought about an old fashioned famous private detective, that’s what I came up with… (laughs) That’s the sort of world view you have in those old mysteries. Iwamoto read that and I think he designed a character that fit well with it.

Now that we’re talking about it, those old mystery novels have a unique atmosphere in the Japanese translations, don’t they?

Takumi: This is probably my specialist field! (laughs) You don’t really see writing like that anymore. The Great Phoenix Wright series is probably me delving fully into those resources and creating my own world. But for the main series Iwamoto and also Nuri (Capcom’s Kazuya Nuri), who was involved from the remasters onwards, blessed the series with some truly great art.

You could say that the series is inseparable from not just the art but also the music and the sound effects. For now, could you tell us more about the music?

Takumi: Of course, it all started with the original game. The sound staff member from that time, Masakazu Sugimori, thought a lot of the capabilities of the Game Boy Advance and tried to focus on game melodies with basic composition that were at the same time simple and easy to understand, but would also be catchy and tug at players’ hearts. ‘Phoenix’s theme’ and ‘Pursuit-cornered’ are songs that get your heart pumping as soon as you listen to them.

It really suits the dramatic setting. With that heart pumping music and emotional impact, the player can really feel a sense of synergy.

Takumi: And definitely with the Steel Samurai theme too! (laughs) Anyway, because that music is so distinctive, the tunes stayed the same even when the staff members changed. Not just the themes of Miles and Godot, or any one character, but also the interrogation music, the courtroom music and even the music that is playing in the background all the time but never gets annoying – all of those have an appeal. Because of the power of that music we’ve even been able even to hold concerts of the themes. I’ll never forget the feeling of hearing Iwadare’s (Noriyuki Iwadare, musician) orchestral arrangement of the music from the third game for the first time. I’m there for the creation of every new song and from morning to night each day I am fine tuning those same songs over and over again while playing the game. I am the self-proclaimed Ace Attorney BGM’s biggest fan. (laughs)

Self-proclaimed? (laughs) I think for everyone both the quality of the design and music in Ace Attorney are extremely high, but as for the writing, have you ever had any sort of formal education in script-writing?

Takumi: Actually, none. To be honest, during my university time I studied literature. I wrote short stories and attended classes for those hoping to become authors, but at the time I was told that while I could write stories, I couldn’t write people. That was pretty traumatic. And, true enough, when it comes to writing characters I’m always helped out by those in the team. Actually the idea for an older Miles to become Phoenix’s classmate was also an idea of one of the designers at the time.

I find it hard to believe that you are weak at writing characters… We’ve already talked about your university time but I’d like to ask you to talk some more about yourself. You mentioned books that you liked, but how about games?

Takumi: Generationally speaking, I was playing at the true dawn of video games, starting with block destruction games like Space Invaders. So I think my main experience is with simple actions games. Eventually the home PC was released and I was immediately drawn to adventure games. Things like Mystery House and Disney Land. Actually, looking back now I wasn’t very good at long story driven games like RPGs. Because the things I played were mainly action, shooting and rhythm games, I’m really fond now of innovative indie games. Things like Braid, Portal and Gorogoa. I really like puzzle-solving games like Myst. I’m also very impressed with the game setting of Another World (JP: Outer World).

This is just hypothetically speaking, but if you were to put yourself, Shu Takumi, in Ace Attorney, what would that character be like?

Takumi: Whichever way you look at it he’d be a strange one. Maybe I could appear in the game as the creator. Maya, your creator is here! Something like that… (laughs)

Would you appear as a witness?

Takumi: How about a victim?

So you’ve been done in? Who is the culprit?

Takumi: Oh no Maya, your creator has died! The culprit? Well, that’s for the heroes of the Ace Attorney series to ascertain! Sorry, that’s just the way it has to be. But when I think about it, there was already a character called Takumi who died in an accident in the first game (in case 3)…

Recently the anime has been creating original stories. Is there a possibility of those being released as a game in future?

Takumi: I think that would be fun, but because those stories have been made with the intention of being seen as TV episodes, I get the feeling it would be better to come up with new stories specifically for a game. Since the release of the anime I’ve had the chance to collaborate with many creators of differing generations on games with a host of different settings. At those times there are many that told me they played and loved the series. That makes me very happy. I think maybe it’s because we have established this long-standing history that I am especially happy.

Well then, here’s the final question of this long interview. What does the Ace Attorney series mean to you personally?

Takumi: This is probably a very common answer but when you are creating something and you put all of yourself into it, that thing becomes a kind of treasure. I am thankful to everyone involved in the series up until now, to those who have already played and also to those that will play in the future. Thank you all of you!

Translation by provided by Corks on behalf of Nintendo Everything

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